


and i break down as you walk away

by TouchTheExoplanets



Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, F/M, Healing, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2020-02-08 19:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18629548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TouchTheExoplanets/pseuds/TouchTheExoplanets
Summary: Some things are inevitable.Clint just never thought this would be one of them.





	1. the fall

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Stay" by Hurts.

Some things are inevitable.

Clint really does believe that. He believed it when he first picked up his bow, then only a cheap prop from the circus. He believed it when he met a young woman cussing at her broken-down car, a woman whose name became Laura Barton. He believed it when he looked through his scope and caught sight of flaming red hair and calculating eyes. And he believes it now, on this godforsaken rock of a planet, on top of its stupid pinnacle of rock, beneath its stupid purple clouds, in front of its stupid goddamn red-skulled bastard of a guardian.

“Maybe he’s making this shit up,” he says. He glances at Natasha. (All these years, and her calculating eyes look just the same.)

She doesn’t respond. She just shakes her head.

Laura, Lila, Cooper, Nate. Goodbye forever, when they turned to dust. He’d been so sure that was it. It wasn’t.  
This, though. This is. This is it.

(He doesn’t know why that knowledge chokes in his throat.)

“I guess we both know who it’s gotta be.”

The math is simple. Clint has spent five years taking lives. He let his grief drive him insane. Natasha hasn’t. She’s saved lives. (She always saves lives.)

“I guess we do.” Their eyes meet, and his throat is still tight.

There’s that hidden part of the equation, of course, the part he’s not sure he can admit to himself even now. That ever since he didn’t fire that arrow, he hasn’t been able to imagine life without her.

(No, that’s not quite right. He’s lived life without her. He’s been happy without her.)

He can’t imagine a _world_ without her. He can’t imagine living, knowing that she isn’t. He can’t. (He can’t.)

He feels her hands wrap around his. Something dawns on him. “I’m starting to think we mean different people here, Natasha.”

“The last five years, I’ve been trying to do one thing. Get to right here. That’s all it’s been about, bringing everybody back.”

Panic ties his throat tighter, and his words barely leave his mouth. “Now don’t you get all decent on me now.”

“What, you think I want to do it?” she says, trying for humor. “I’m trying to save your life, you idiot.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want you to,” he says. “I don’t want you to, because . . . I . . .” _love you. Missed you. Can’t imagine a world without you._ “Natasha, you know what I’ve done. You know what I’ve become.” His stomach churns as he says the words. (Even now, every atom of his body is screaming that he doesn’t want to die.)

Her eyes are steady. Resolved. She’s always been more pragmatic than him. “I don’t judge people by their worst mistakes,” she says, and he wants to scream. _Mistakes?_ He knows what he did. _Mistakes?_ He knew what he was doing was wrong. _Don’t make excuses for me._ He knew. He just didn’t care.

“Maybe you should,” he says, but his throat is so tight now that his voice is almost gone. Tight with _Laura, Lila, Cooper, Nate-_

“You didn’t,” she responds, and it hits him in the chest like a gunshot. That one choice, and the weight of those years, and her, in his life, _always_ there, _always_.

“You’re a pain in my ass, you know that?” he says, trying for humor, but she only nods, tears in her eyes. She’s gasping a little. It occurs to him that for all her pragmatism, she’s hurting, too. She’s trying to be strong, but she’s trembling. She’s trying to be calm, but she’s worried. She’s- she’s-

She’s scared.

And he sees it in her eyes, and his heart breaks. The tightness in his throat vanishes. He will not let her die scared.

He presses his forehead to hers, and he allows himself this last moment. He closes his eyes. This is a good way to go. He tries to make peace with that. He’s never been great at making peace with death. It’s why he’s stayed alive so long.

(Not this time.)

(This is it.)

So he says, “Okay. You win.”

She nods a little. He lets himself give her one last smile.

And then he slams her down on the ground. She cries out. “Tell my family I love them,” Clint says, half an order, half a plea, ready to run for the edge of the cliff - but the words are barely out of his mouth before she hits hard and fast and suddenly it’s him on the ground.

“You tell them yourself,” she says, and he has just enough time to feel a spike of terror - this is not how this is supposed to go! - before electricity arcs through his body. He yelps and fumbles his hand over his chest, pushing the disk aside. He sits up. Natasha is running for the cliff, fuck, shit, _fuck!_ He grabs his bow and scrambles to his feet and has just enough sense to aim for her feet. The arrow explodes, throwing Nat to the ground, and he’s relieved but he has to _run_ because she’s very close to the edge of the cliff now and so long as he runs, he can make it.

He throws his bow aside. Not gonna need that anymore.

Clint knows where the edge of the cliff is, so he keeps his eyes trained on her. If he has any choice about the last thing he sees, he’s gonna choose his best friend’s face.

He leaps as far as he can from the edge of the cliff. His stomach flies into his throat, and he’s in freefall.

(This is it.)

(This is it.)

(This is-)

He should have known she wouldn’t give up. 

He wouldn’t, if it were him.

There’s a sharp _yank_ and he grabs onto Nat and they swing hard, crashing into the sharp stone of the cliff, and she slips from his grip, _no!_ He reaches for something, anything, and somehow just barely manages to grab ahold of her wrist.

 _“Fuck!”_ he spits, because he was _so goddamn close._ He looks at Natasha, and his heart crawls into his throat when he sees the ground far below her dangling feet. “Damn you,” he growls, and for a second he really means it.

He focuses. He needs to get Nat to safety. He reaches for her with his free hand, straining, fighting against their combined body weight. He’s so close, if he just reaches- a little- farther-

A furious noise escapes the back of his throat as he gives up. He can’t reach her. “Hey!” he says, because Natasha isn’t holding onto his arm, and _you know what, it’s hard enough to hold you with one hand but if you’re not even going to help-_

And what’s worse, her hand is slipping. Every second, slipping further from him and closer to the unforgiving stone below.

Natasha looks down, then looks back up at him, and he sees it in her eyes.

(Some things are inevitable.)

“Let me go,” she says, gently.

 _“No.”_ He is not going to let this happen. His breaths are coming hard and fast. He can barely speak. “No.”

All he can do is beg. “Please, no.”

(Not you.)

He doesn’t know what else to do.

(Not you too.)

There’s a half-smile on her face that he, he, he hates. Her expression is soft and gentle and he can’t take it, he won’t take it, he’ll go insane.

_(I can’t lose you too.)_

“It’s okay,” she breathes.

He crumples. There are no words for the feeling pooling in his stomach, the panic and terror and dread and _helplessness_ , the feeling of inevitability except this time he doesn’t just feel it in his gut, he can smell it in the air and taste it on his tongue and _see it in her eyes._

And all he can do is beg. So he begs, tears filling his voice. _“Please.”_

She kicks away from the wall. He tries, he tries, he tries to hold on but her wrist rips from his grasp. He screams, or tries to, but he doesn’t have the breath, so the sound just chokes out of him, and he reaches for her, reaches, but she’s so far away already, taken down, down, down, down - tears threaten to obscure his vision, and he blinks, desperately tracking Natasha, tracking _his best friend_ , as she falls through the clouds. He yanks on the cable bound to his belt, but it holds, so he grabs it with both hands and yanks, and nothing. He turns his head - _where is she?_ \- and no. 

No, no, no, no, no, _no, no, no._

He’s seen so much death in his life.

He knows what death looks like.

(His breaths come in heaving gasps, but he wishes they weren’t coming at all.)

A moment has come that he’d hoped he would never see. A moment that was inevitable as soon as she dove off the cliff after him. The moment death looks like Natasha Romanov.

And all the love in the world didn’t matter. All his skill, all his luck, all his nerve hadn’t mattered. All that matters now is the pain, splitting him from sternum to skull, turning his limbs to lead, shattering him into a million pieces.

His eyes burn. He turns his head away; he can’t look at her anymore. Not at the blood pooling around her head, redder even than her hair. He just clings to the cable, his tether to life and sanity, the only evidence left in this stupid world that his friend loved him.


	2. the stone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Exactly one week and three midterms later, I am back with chapter two. I also edited chapter one a little bit to make the dialogue fit the movie better. Not super happy with this, but I have to stop tweaking it. Enjoy!

The first thing Clint notices is a dull ache, starting at his temples and radiating out over every inch of his body. Pain is an old friend of his, but this is different, a quiet, pulsing throb instead of the piercing agony of a broken bone or bullet wound. He opens his eyes, intending to check himself over for injuries, and finds himself blinking at orange clouds.

Adrenaline kicks in and Clint sits up, looking around. All he can see in every direction is water, maybe six inches deep and freezing cold, and the hazy outline of mountains in the distance. Above him are orange and purple clouds, eerie and beautiful in the way a cobra is beautiful right before it strikes. His hand itches for his bow, but it’s nowhere to be seen. He scans the horizon again, searching for landmarks, something that might remind him where he is. He frowns. Something about the color of the sky pressed up against the mountains taps something in his mind- a memory-

Vormir. That’s right. He came to an alien planet to find the Soul Stone, in the hopes that he could turn back time and bring his family back. Sure. Just another day in the life of a circus performer turned assassin turned superhero.

But hadn’t he come with-?

His hand itches again beneath his heavy wet glove, and he looks down at his closed fist. There’s a strange sort of sensation dancing across his palm, itchy and burning and sharp. An animal instinct from deep in his subconscious tells him to drop whatever is in his fist _right now_ , but caution stays his hand.

Whatever it is, he knows in his bones that it is very, very dangerous. He knows - he doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows - that he will regret opening his hand.

He does it anyway.

It takes a little effort - his glove is soaked and his fingers frigid - but he uncurls his fingers and there, nestled innocently in his palm, is a small orange gem, glowing softly.

He has only half a moment to be puzzled before the memory hits him.

_What, you think I want to? I’m trying to save your life, you idiot._

_You tell them yourself._

_Let me go. It’s okay._

_No!_

The memory slams back into his brain and leaves him gasping and reeling and sobbing, and the stone just sits there, glowing, like it hadn’t taken the last thing that made his life worth living. He wants to crush it, throw it away, and the only reason- the _only_ reason- he doesn’t is because Natasha is dead. She’s dead. She died for him, and she died for this, and he’ll be damned if she died for nothing.

And so, through the haze in his mind and ache in his bones, he wipes his tears and makes it to his feet. He tucks the stupid fucking stone in his pocket, puts on his helmet, and activates his Pym device to send himself hurtling back to the present.

(Without her.)

When his feet hit the ground, he crumples. He has barely enough strength to keep breathing, let alone stand. They ask him where Nat is, and he closes his eyes and just forces himself to breathe.

(She died so that he would keep breathing.)

So he breathes.

For a time, a couple hours or so, that’s all he can do. Then, like a switch was flipped, fury rushes over him, white and hot. He wants to burn Vormir, burn _Thanos_ , nock one of his explosive arrows and destroy the whole goddamn universe. That is what fuels him, through his phone ringing and the complex exploding and him running, fighting. It’s almost a comfort. Loss is impossible, defeat impossible. He sprints so fast he thinks his lungs might burst, and his shoulder shrieks in pain every time he draws back an arrow, but he’s more awake and alert than he’s ever been. He could do this for centuries.

And when they win, well. Some things are inevitable.

He turns to face the next opponent and it’s dissolving into dust. He turns, and turns again, arrow nocked and pulled back to his cheek. There’s no one left to fight.

His knees threaten to give out. Again.

He relaxes his arm and sucks in air. The dust makes him cough, and his head swims. He sees people gathering by the wreck of an alien ship - his sharp eyes pick out that spider-kid, and a few others - and tries to take a step in that direction, but his foot barely lifts and the ground comes rushing toward his face.

A pair of hands catches him and the word “Natasha” is halfway out of his mouth before he looks up and sees a black mask.

He pushes down the pain. “Cat man,” he says, half-heartedly sarcastic as he tries to retake his feet. “I still don’t know your name.”

A young woman rushes forward to help guide Clint to the ground.

“T’Challa,” she says. “And I’m Shuri.”

“H-”

“Hold still,” Shuri interrupts. Her attention is focused on Clint’s chest.

“What’re you- what-?” Clint tries to push her away, but his hands won’t respond.

“She’s trying to help,” the black panther says, removing his mask.

The words don’t seem to reach Clint’s brain. “Stop,” he says. His voice is faint. He can’t get enough air. “S- s-” A liquid bubbles up out of his mouth. He manages to get his hands up, and he pushes at Shuri.

“Brother,” Shuri says, frustrated. T’Challa reaches forward and grabs Clint’s wrists. He begins speaking, his words clipped with annoyance and concern and maybe something else, but the syllables blur together meaninglessly. Clint tries to focus, tries to pay attention, and he almost does until a firm pressure on his abdomen sends Clint hurtling into the past.

_He has the arrow aimed right in between those two hostile eyes. She’s off-balance. He remembers what Fury told him about her skill, and knows this might be the only chance he gets. But something in her expression, the way her forehead creases, looks eerily familiar, and he hesitates._

_It’s only for half a second, but it’s enough. The chance is gone. She has her handgun pointed at his center of mass. She squeezes the trigger. Pain explodes in his side._

_He thinks that he screams. The next thing he’s aware of is cobblestones under his back and the barrel of her gun two inches from his face. He clutches at the injury and waits for death._

_It doesn’t come._

_“You didn’t shoot,” she says, speaking English for the first time. Clint’s right hearing aid is dead, his left on the fritz, so he keeps his eyes trained on her face, reading her lips._

_“No,” he agrees with a grunt of pain. He feels blood leaking out between his fingers._

_She narrows her eyes. “You’re the worst assassin yet.”_

_Clint shrugs and immediately regrets it, gasping as the motion tugs at his wound. “Part of the job is knowing when to pull the trigger.”_

_She narrows her eyes. “You should have shot. I’m going to kill you.”_

_“Then do it.”_

_And she hesitates._

_Clint isn’t scared of her, not anymore. He knows why the crease in her forehead was familiar. He saw it in the mirror every day when he was working in the circus._

_Grunting, he pushes himself into a sitting position. She tracks his head with her gun, but doesn’t stop him. “You and me, we got dealt a bad hand,” he says. “I chose to do something about it.” He meets her eyes. “What are you gonna do?”_

_“There’s nothing to do,” she spits. “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I am. The things I’ve done.”_

_He can’t help but grin. The number of times he’s heard himself think that. Say that. “I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes,” he says. Blood continues to drip from his fingers, dotting the freshly fallen snow. He ignores it. He plants a hand on the ice and pushes himself to his feet. “Ten years ago, someone forgave me. I was only fifteen. You’re- how old are you?”_

_“Didn’t they give you a file to read?”_

_“Eh. I skimmed it.”_

_A smile pulls at her mouth. A real smile. “I’m seventeen.”_

_“You’re overdue.” He offers his hand. “I’m Clint. You coming?”_

Clint chokes and coughs, the taste of copper coating the inside of his mouth. T’Challa and Shuri are conversing in rapidfire- is it English? If it’s English, he’s worse off than he thought. He can’t understand a word they’re saying.

Shuri presses harder on his side and he’s hit with another memory.

_He kicks a leg up on her chair, his side protesting in sharp pain at the motion. She gives him a look. He gives her an exhausted grin in response, too tired to come up with something smartass to say. He knows there are other people at this table, but he doesn’t look at them. He’s too ashamed. He shouldn’t be here, at this table of heroes. He doesn’t belong here. If it weren’t for Nat, he’d be locked in a cell for all the things he’s done._

_The memory of shooting Fury in the chest hits him, and he shudders, then winces, holding his side._

_“Why did you do it?” he mutters, too soft for anyone to hear over the sounds of eating._

_Natasha doesn’t ask what he means. She understands. “I know you,” she says, picking a piece of shawarma up with her fingers and putting it in her mouth._

_“I thought I knew me, too,” he says, trying not to let bitterness seep into his tone._

_Nat wipes her fingers clean on his pant leg. He doesn’t object. “I know you,” she repeats, “and I know what . . .” She frowns, searching for words. “I know what it’s like to be controlled.” She looks down at the table. Then she takes a deep breath, straightens up, and meets his eyes. “What you do under the control of someone else is never your fault.”_

_He feels tears prick at the back of his throat._

_“And even if it was,” she says, picking up her cup of Coke and taking a huge gulp. He feels the need to remind her that it’s not a shot of vodka. “I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes.”_

_He tilts his head. “I jumped off of a building today.”_

_She rolls her eyes. “Except for that. I’m definitely judging you for that.”_

_“I think I broke a rib,” he says conversationally. He points to his side. “Hurts.”_

_“That tends to happen when you jump off of buildings,” she says, smirking. He laughs. She reaches over and pokes him in the side._

_“Ouch,” he complains. “Yeah. As high-thrill rides go, jumping off of buildings is a zero out of ten, do not recommend.”_

_“What did we learn today?” Nat asks, pulling a basket of shawarma closer to her._

_“Don’t trust alien demigods?” he says, reaching out for a piece of her food. She holds it out of reach. He makes a noise of complaint, trying to grab for it without jostling his broken rib._

_“And?” she prompts, pointedly eating another piece._

_He huffs and gives up. “Don’t jump off of things. Fine. Now gimme some of that.”_

“Clint. Clint? Can you hear me? You have to stay awake.”

“Natasha,” he says.

A pause. “No. Shuri, remember? Who’s Natasha?”

He blinks. A face blurs into view, a face that is decidedly not Natasha. Two faces.

T’Challa says something quick to Shuri in a language Clint doesn’t recognize. She nods. “We have not seen Natasha,” T’Challa says. “I am sure she is here somewhere.”

And Clint hates him, for his forced optimism. Hates Shuri, for trying to save his life. Hates the whole fucking universe, though that’s nothing new. Mostly he hates himself. For still being alive. For not fighting harder. (For letting a world exist in which his heart is beating and hers is not.)

(In his world, it’s been fifteen hard, brutal hours since she died.)

(In his world, it’s also been five years.)

He’s just a guy with a weapon from the Stone Age. He belongs more at Medieval Times than he does here. He shouldn’t be alive. He doesn’t deserve to be alive. Not when it would take more than 300 years to just _say_ the names of everyone who died in the Snap.

(If he’s going to stay alive, is he going to spend the rest of his life waking up with her name on his lips?)

The thought is unbearable.

T’Challa and Shuri exchange a concerned look when, at last, after fifteen brutal hours (after five brutal years), he bursts into tears.


	3. the visitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This kind of an interlude? It was supposed to be chapter 3 of 4 but then it was getting way too long so now it's chapter 3 of 5. Enjoy!

Steve comes to visit Clint, later. He does that thing he always does where he leans on the doorframe and crosses his arms and looks concerned but in a male model kind of way, and Clint wants to roast him about it but Natasha isn’t here to laugh, so what’s the point, really?

(It’s things like that that hurt the most.)

“Have you gone to see them yet?” Steve asks.

Clint shakes his head. “I texted Laura,” he says, shifting his weight, uncomfortable in his stiff motel armchair. The stab wound that Shuri patched up on the battlefield is healing, and it itches like hell. “She knows I’m alive.” He takes a drink of whiskey from the glass dangling loosely in his hand.

“Some family reunion,” Steve says. His tone is faintly reproachful. Clint couldn’t give a flying fuck about it. “You’ll feel better if you see them,” he says, a little gentler.

“Sure,” Clint agrees. “I’ll hug my kids and kiss my wife and the very first thing they’ll ask me is _where’s auntie Nat?_ Sounds like a grand old time.”

Steve switches tactics. “It’s not all about you,” he says, sharper. “They’re your family. They need you.”

“They’ve already died once because of me. I think they’ll be just fine.”

“That wasn’t because of you.”

“Why not? Everything else is.”

“Three billion people are _alive_ because of you.”

“Nat isn’t one of them. Neither is Tony. Fuck off.”

Steve leaves him alone after that. One thing Clint will admit: he’s glad that Steve didn’t bother to ask him if he’s okay. He takes another drink.

It’s been nine days since the second Snap.

 

Clint’s next visitor is Shuri.

“I came to check on your injury,” she says.

“You’re not a doctor,” he responds. “You’re a kid.”

“I’m both,” she says, a weariness to her tone that says she’s fielded this kind of criticism before.

Tough. “You went to med school?” he asks, pouring skepticism into his words.

“An accelerated program,” she says, nodding as she flops down on his unmade bed without permission. “The regular classes were too slow for me. Traditional medicine is fine, but medical technology is cooler. I saved Agent Ross’s life.”

“Could’ve done without that, to be honest.”

“Oh, he’s all right,” Shuri says. “He took a bullet for Nakia.”

“Who the fuck is Nakia?”

“The future queen of Wakanda,” Shuri says, beaming. Clint is starting to hate this kid. She’s impossible to annoy. She’s a goddamn ray of sunshine. He hopes she never meets the spider-kid, who is equally sunshiney.

“Great. Can you leave?”

“My dad died last month,” she says, out of the fucking blue, and Clint blinks. “Or I guess five years and a month ago, now,” she corrects herself, like that was the reason for Clint’s delayed response. “I was dusted, so my timelines are a little off.”

Clint doesn’t like this conversation at all.

She doesn’t appear to need his participation. “He was giving a speech at United Nations,” she says, “and it exploded. My brother thought the Winter Soldier did it, but he didn’t. He was buying plums.”

“Who cares?” Clint says, taking another swig of whiskey.

He doesn’t know if he’s way drunker than he thought, or if this kid is just unnaturally quick, but she snags the glass out of his hand before he can react and places it on a table out of reach.

_“Hey-”_

“And then my brother was killed, or so I thought,” she continues as if uninterrupted. “And Zuri, who was like my uncle. I thought I had lost half my family in a week. There’s nothing like losing your family.” She meets his eyes. “It doesn’t matter if you share blood. It still feels like you’ve lost a limb.” She pauses. “Or maybe your lungs,” she adds, thoughtful.

A vice catches Clint’s chest and squeezes the air from him. “Is there a point to this?” he says, the sharp question rather undermined by his breathlessness.

“Yes,” Shuri says. “I’m trying to say that I understand. I’ve lost grandparents before, but it’s harder when it’s . . . unexpected.” He thinks she almost said _violent,_ but she rushes on. “When my father died, all I wanted was to see him again. I didn’t think I would ever get him back, but if I could just say . . .” She shakes her head. “There’s nothing that makes healing faster, but I think that would have made it easier.”

The rush of tears is sudden and unexpected. Clint tries to hold them back, turns his face toward the wall and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. He’s not going to cry in front of this kid.

When he has himself under control, he turns back to Shuri. “Steve has the stones,” he says. “Why not use them? Try to contact him?”

Her smile is soft, and her answer is practiced, like she’s been thinking about this. “It’s been too long now. I will not reopen the wound, not when it has healed well enough on its own. I have my mother, and my brother. Healing is easier when you don’t do it alone.” She shakes her head. “Besides, without the gauntlet, the stones are unharnessed power. I wouldn’t dare to use them without a proper conduit.”

She sighs, straightens up, wipes a few tears from her face. “Can I keep you alive now?”

“Honestly, I’d rather you didn’t,” Clint says in a low grumble that’s not meant for her ears. She doesn’t react, but he thinks it likely that she heard. She unwraps, inspects, and redresses the wound in about five minutes, and he begrudgingly admits it’s fastest healing he’s done in years.

“That’s because of the kimoyo bead,” Shuri says, smiling big, when he tells her. “They are all developed from vibranium! It’s amazing what properties xenoelements can have. And the applications! Accelerated healing, weaponry, circuitry, scanning, communi . . .” Her voice trails off. She mutters something in her language, which Clint has been informed is called Xhosa. “I’ll be back.” And she dashes out of the room.

Clint snorts and takes another swig of whiskey. Kids.

It’s been fifteen days since the second Snap.

 

The problem is that nobody knows him like Natasha does.

(Like Natasha _did._ )

She would know exactly what to say to get him back on his feet. He does want to be back on his feet. He just doesn’t know how to get there. And whenever he starts _thinking,_ he thinks about the fear in her eyes and the feeling of her fingers slipping through his.

So he doesn’t think. He drinks and doesn’t sleep and doesn’t eat and doesn’t move and doesn’t think.

 

When Shuri returns, she wears the same clothes as before, which instantly annoys Clint. It’s been days since she left, and she’s looking significantly more rumpled and tired, which means she probably hasn’t slept or showered or _anything,_ and he really prefers to be the only self-destructive person in the vicinity. Self-destructive people do not enjoy the company of other self-destructive people, in his experience.

Trailing behind her, looking slightly bemused, is Steve, which proceeds to annoy Clint even further. So he starts the conversation at about 125% annoyance.

“I have something for you,” Shuri says, “but I’m not going to tell you to use it. You have to decide.”

“So why is he here?” Clint says, gesturing a bit too enthusiastically with his glass at Steve. A bit of whiskey sloshes onto the carpet. A waste, really.

“To tell you not to use it,” Steve responds.

“Oooh. So serious. You know that you’re like twice her size, right?” Clint waves vaguely. “America, attack!”

“Clint,” Shuri says, serious.

“If you start talking about your dad again-” Clint points at her. “-I swear to god-”

“It’s about Natasha,” Steve says, and everything grinds to a halt.

“Natasha’s dead,” Clint says, his voice hollow.

“I know,” Shuri says. “And nothing’s going to change that. But I think I might have designed a way for you to talk to her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would love to hear from you in the comments! <3


	4. the apartment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry this is a day late! Hopefully I'm making up for it with the fact that it's quite a long chapter. It was exhausting to write - too many feelings - but I'm pretty happy with it, all things considered. Enjoy!

“I never said I wanted to talk to her,” Clint says, his heart in his throat.

“But you do, right?” Shuri insists. Clint tries not to notice the box clasped tight in her hands.

“I have nothing to say to her. She’s dead.”

“But-”

Steve puts a gentle hand on Shuri’s shoulder, and she subsides. “I know you’re trying to help,” he says quietly, “but people heal in different ways. If this isn’t what he wants, we shouldn’t make him. Especially when an infinity stone is involved.”

Clint expects them to leave after that. Hopes for it, really. What he doesn’t expect is for Steve to turn to him.

“I don’t want you to use the soul stone,” Steve says. “I think it’s too dangerous to use something like that unnecessarily.” He sighs. “But I have to ask.”

“God, whatever it is, just don’t.”

“Why are you here?”

Clint squints at him. “Like, here, on this Earth? Believe me, my guy, I’d much rather be wherever Nat is.”

Steve crosses his arms, undeterred. “When your family died, you went insane. Our sources tell us you were known as _Ronin._ You dropped the bow and arrow, picked up a sword, and started killing. But now, with Natasha, you . . .” He gestures around him. At the trashed motel room, at Clint’s unshowered, unshaven face, at the bottles of alcohol on the dresser. “She wouldn’t have wanted this.”

Nobody ever knew what Natasha wanted.

(That was her gift. Being inscrutable.)

_(He could see it in her eyes.)_

(That was his gift. Reading her.)

“You didn’t know her,” Clint says, his voice rough. “You don’t know what she wanted.”

“Maybe not like you did,” Steve concedes, “but I know she wouldn’t have wanted you like this.”

“What’s wrong with this? All I do is sit and drink. I’m living my best life.” Shuri frowns at him. Clint doesn’t look her in the eye. He doesn’t trust himself not to lose it.

“Shuri, can you give us a moment?” Steve asks in his patented _I’m-Captain-America-and-I-only-want-what’s-best_ voice. Shuri nods, passing the box in her hands to Steve. She shoots Clint another glance and leaves, shutting the door behind her.  
Clint is suddenly feeling very cornered. Steve sits on the edge of his bed, leaning forward. He doesn’t reach out, but he is suddenly much closer.

“Why won’t you let yourself heal?” Steve asks.

Clint considers telling him to fuck off again. Last time it didn’t take.

(He gave up. She was dangling from one hand, and he tried to reach her with the other hand, and he gave up. _If he had just reached a little farther-)_

“It’s my fault she’s dead,” Clint grinds out, voice thick with tears. “I shouldn’t have taken her to Vormir- I shouldn’t have- I could have-” He chokes on a sob, and Steve waits. He still doesn’t reach out, and for that Clint is grateful.

He takes a shuddering breath. “If I move on, it means I’m giving up. I can’t give up on Natasha. When I decided not to kill her, when I took her to SHIELD, I _promised_ myself-”

_What if I turn out to be a double agent for the KGB, huh? You’ll just turn around and kill me._

_I won’t._

_You will. It’s your job._

(His memory is splintered, broken and pieced back together. Vormir and Moscow and Budapest and New York and-)

_Fuck my job. I’m not giving up on you. I’ll drag you out of Moscow myself. You deserve to live a life of your own._

_I don’t deserve shit._

_Of course you do. What you do under the control of someone else is never your fault._

Steve is quiet. Clint wonders if he’s thinking about Peggy. About how long and hard she must have searched for him.

A long moment passes. Then another.

Then, at last: “I think you should talk to her.”

Clint turns the cup in his hand. A beam of setting sun shines through a crack in the curtains and onto the glass. The light fractures and tosses color onto his calloused fingers.

“So much for being the bad cop,” he says.

Steve shakes his head and looks down at the box in his hands. “I think you owe it to her to try.” Then he holds it out.

It’s been twenty days since the second Snap.

 

Clint stops pacing. “It’s not going to work,” he says to the empty room.

The motel’s tiny indoor pool does not respond.

“The kid is smart, but nobody invents these kinds of things in three days. And she’s not, like, _Tony_ smart.” He eyes the box with distrust. “Right?”

It’s an unassuming thing. Flimsy white cardboard.

“If she were _Tony_ smart, she would’ve designed a fancy box.” Pause. “No, she’d only do that if she were Tony obnoxious.” Pause. “It’d be hard to be Tony obnoxious.”

He resumes pacing.

What does he have to lose?

(If he tries, and it doesn’t work, his heart will break all over again. Of that he is sure.)

(If he tries, and it does work, seeing her again will also break his heart all over again.)

(If he doesn’t try, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to live with himself.)

He supposes that makes heartbreak inevitable.

Clint stops pacing. Takes a deep breath. Opens the box.

The device inside bears a striking resemblance to the Pym device, which almost makes him throw up. Nestled in the neat claws of a vibranium frame is the soul stone, which _does_ make him throw up. Whiskey and bile, fucking nasty. He manages to make it to a trash can.

(Nat would make a joke about Hawkeye aim.)

He clips the device around his wrist. Written in messy pen on the inside of the box’s lid are the words:

_press the button to activate. i can only give you thirty minutes. good luck. <3_

_shuri._

What does he have to lose?

He closes his eyes, and he presses the button.

 

Clint isn’t sure what he expected. He’s never believed in heaven, not really, but a part of him expected clouds, he thinks. Another part of him expected flames, because if anyone is destined for hell, it’s people in their line of work. Most of him expected nothing at all.

What he did _not_ expect is to see his shitty old apartment, from long before he met Laura. Smaller than a shoebox, always smelled like cigarettes and weed, but it had a microwave and a couch and a toilet, and that was all he needed, really.

He and Nat spent so many days here.

Every detail is exactly as he remembers, from the Chinese takeout containers strewn across the one rickety card table to the pile of dirty dishes he left in the sink the day he left for Budapest and never came back. Clint takes a step towards the table and spots photos taped to the wall. Him and Lucky, him and Kate, him and Coulson and Natasha. His chosen family. All gone now.

Clint turns in place, examining the broken blinds, the chipped paint, the lumpy, broken couch-

When he sees the figure slouched on that couch, his heart just about stops.

The first thing he notices is that she looks exactly like he last saw her, albeit dressed in streetwear instead of combat gear. The second thing he notices is that her arms are crossed and she’s glowering at him.

He feels the sudden urge to burst into tears (again), which is probably why he knuckles down hard on that impulse and instead says, “The fuck you looking at?”

Her eyebrows lift.

He exhales a bitter laugh. “Don’t give me that fucking look. I’m not the one who died before the war even started.”

Nat’s eyes narrow dangerously. “As I recall, _you’re_ the one who wasn’t there when the war started. You were off tending the fields.”

Clint’s temper flares. “How was I supposed to be there when I didn’t know it was fucking happening? You had a phone, you could have called!”

Her words drip acid. “I remember your _exact_ words to Steve. They were _‘next time there’s a super-squabble, leave me the fuck out of it.’_ ”

“First of all, I don’t sound like that, and secondly, you’re changing the subject. You _died.”_ He feels the pain rising again. He stomps it down.

Natasha stands up. “Yeah, I did,” she spits, stalking forward to face him. “Isn’t that enough? Do I have to listen to your lecture too?”

“Yeah,” Clint growls, balling his hands into fists. “Yeah, you do. What the fuck were you thinking?”

Nat throws up her hands. “I was thinking about the mission, and I was thinking about your family. I’m sorry, should I have been thinking of moral philosophy? We agreed a long time ago not to do that.”

“Well- I-” Clint casts about wildly for something to say. “You should have been more careful!”

“Careful? I didn’t trip and fall on the stairs, Clint. I jumped off a cliff.”

“You didn’t think it through.”

She scoffs. “Of course I did. You know I did. We had two options, and you have dependents. I had no partner, no family-”

“No _partner?_ What about _me?_ ”

Silence.

“I knew you would be okay.”

Clint shakes his head. “No. No. You couldn’t have known that. And even if you think you did, you were wrong.”

Natasha’s face softens.

Clint’s whole body shakes. His fists are clenched, his teeth bared, his fury a dam against a tidal wave that he knows, if he lets it loose, will drown him. It’ll drown him. It’ll drown him.

Nat reaches for him, and for half a moment he’s terrified that she’ll just pass right through him. She’s a ghost, and ghosts can’t touch people, right? All the movies say so.

But it turns out movies have failed him again. Her fingers touch his jaw, and the touch is warm and familiar, and it turns out that that’s all it takes to bring the dam crashing down.

She doesn’t say anything as he breaks down. She doesn’t try to shush him, or comfort him. She just puts her arms around him and holds him tight in a grip that has killed a thousand men, and she doesn’t complain when he holds her back so fiercely that he doesn’t know how she can breathe.

When he comes back to himself, they’ve ended up on the floor. He wishes, thirty years too late, that he’d vacuumed a little more. Back then he hadn’t cared about sitting in the crumbs of months of fortune cookies.

He pulls back and looks her in the eye, and she opens her mouth to say something, but he just blurts out “I’m sorry” before he even knows he’s saying it.

Nat blinks. “For what?”

“Everything,” he says. He means to stop there, but words just start spilling out. “For Ronin, for Thanos, for not fighting harder, for-”

She rolls her eyes and pulls away. “Stop right there. That’s your problem.”

He blinks. “My- what?”

“‘You’re sorry for not fighting harder,’” she says, and he can hear the air quotes in her tone. He opens his mouth, but she’s not done. “This is not on you, Clint. Not because you _did your best,_ or because _Thanos is really to blame,_ or whatever everyone else is telling you. Because it’s on me.”

“Nat-”

“I made my choice. Blaming yourself means you’re forgetting I’m a person, and that shit won’t fly.”

“No, Nat, that’s not what I-” She gives him a _look._ He goes silent. He knows firsthand how dangerous her rage can be.

“When I was a child, I was trained to obey,” she continues, words soft and deadly. “They tortured me, and they broke me; I was a _child._ ” Her voice is shards of glass, her eyes chips of ice. “And they used rusty pliers to pull every thought from my head. It took me years to rebuild my autonomy, and I will never give it up again, not to _them-_ ” She makes a small noise of disgust in the back of her throat. “-and certainly not to you.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats. Nat raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “I just-” He looks down at his hands. “I miss you.”

He can’t look her in the eye.

“Everybody’s lost somebody,” she says, gentle.

“What do you want from me?” he snaps, meeting her eyes. He wants to be angry at her. Anger is a productive emotion, one that has fueled him through more near-death scenarios than he can count. But he can’t muster it anymore. All he feels is heavy and fragile.

Natasha looks back at him. He has to look away.

“I told you,” she says, still gentle. “Let me go. You have work to do. People who need you.”

“Haven’t I done enough?” he whispers, and the heaviness pins him to the floor, and the fragility fills his throat with tears. The mess of sensations in his gut and his chest is impossible to sort through, and even if it weren’t, he’s too exhausted to try. “I just miss you,” he whispers, because that’s easier than saying anything else.

She reaches for his hands, twisted together in his lap, and curls her fingers around his.

A tear drips down his face. It lands on his sleeve. Natasha smiles at him. He’s never seen a smile so sad. “I’m sorry,” he says, again.

“What are you sorry for this time?” she asks, a hint of humor in her tone despite the shine of tears in her eyes.

“For wanting a family.” Another tear. This one lands on their intertwined hands.

Her humor vanishes. “That’s not your fault either,” she says, weary and serious. “I never wanted kids. You did. Couples break up over that all the time.”

“Maybe I could’ve been okay with it. Maybe we could’ve made it work.”

She reaches up and touches his face absently. He wonders if she’s even aware she’s doing it. “Maybe we could’ve,” she concedes. “But I know you, Clint. I think you would’ve regretted it.” She grins. “Besides, I make a great aunt.”

He has to smile. “You do,” he agrees. The next tear lands on her arm. “Did,” he corrects himself, and there goes that sliver of happiness.

Natasha watches his face, and he knows she’s reading every emotion.

“You made the right choice,” she says quietly. “And so did I. I’m sorry it hurts.”

He nods. Then he shakes his head. Nat leans forward and presses her forehead to his, and the sensation is so shockingly familiar he almost feels the whipping wind and sees the purple clouds- but then she grips his hands tighter, anchoring him.

After a long moment, she pulls back. He opens his eyes. He can barely see through the haze of tears that he didn’t even realize he was crying. She wipes away a few tears of her own.

“Will you let me go?” she says.

He hates that question. He shakes his head. “No.”

“Clint-”

“ _No._ Not if letting you go means forgetting you, or what you did for me, for my kids, for the world. You don’t deserve that.”

“I don’t want fame.”

“Well, good, because you’re not going to get it. But our family, the people who matter- they’re going to remember you. The Avengers are going to remember you.”

“They’re going to need a rebrand if they’re doing something besides avenging,” Nat says, smiling.

(She’s joking to hide how pleased she is.)

(Unfortunately for her, he can see it in her eyes.)

“The Rememberers doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Clint says, and she laughs. His chest aches at the sound, glowing and hurting at the same time.

(If that stinging warmth is what remembering is going to feel like, he thinks that maybe - maybe, with time - he can learn to be okay with it.)

“What’s that?” Natasha says, looking down at his wrist. Clint looks down too. Just above the setting of the soul stone, a tiny red indicator light has begun to flash. 

“Thirty minutes,” Clint breathes. He looks at Nat. “I think my time is up.”

She blinks back tears and nods. “Okay.”

Nat looks at him. He looks at her. He has a feeling she’s doing the same thing he is: memorizing every inch of her face, brutally aware that this is it. The last time.

“I miss you,” she says.

“God, me too,” he says, and then they’re locked in a tight hug. He buries his face in her shoulder. She smells like shampoo, and it’s funny, because he doesn’t think she ever smelled so clean on Earth. She was always bloody, dirty, sweaty. That, more than anything, feels like finality.

(This is really it.)

(This sucks.)

He feels tears on his neck and pretends he can’t feel her body trembling in his arms. She must be pretending the same.

“I love you,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, I miss you, I love you.”

She just grips him tighter.

When she pulls away, her eyes are red with tears. She leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I love you too,” she says. “Goodbye.”

He has just enough time to whisper “goodbye” before the device beeps loudly - and she vanishes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments make me a better writer! <3


	5. the aftermath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _and i wonder if you know  
>  how it feels to let you go_

Clint’s eyes fly open. His legs buckle beneath him and first his knees, then his hands hit the ground hard. For a moment, all he sees are his hands against the damp cement, washed in bright blue from the underwater pool lights. Then sensation rushes back into his body.

“Fuck, _ow.”_ Clint collapses into a sitting position and rubs at his knees. “God, I’m too old for this.” Without looking at it, he pulls Shuri’s device off of his wrist and drops it back into its flimsy cardboard box. He never wants to see that fucking thing again.

“Are you okay?” asks a soft voice from behind him, and Clint just about jumps out of his skin. He twists (too fast, ow) to find the speaker, relaxing when he spots Steve sitting on the edge of a crappy plastic lounge chair.

“Yeah, fine,” he answers, hauling himself to his feet.

“You were gone for three days,” Steve says, voice still uncharacteristically quiet, and for the first time, Clint notices that he’s wearing a t-shirt and pair of flannel pajama pants, his hair ruffled and eyes swollen.

Clint blinks. “Did you sleep at all in those three days?”

Steve shrugs. “We were worried.” He gestures with his chin at one of the other chairs, where Shuri is curled up with a blanket, _still_ dressed in the same clothes, snoring softly.

Clint scrubs at his face. “Sorry.” Steve presses a finger to his lips, glancing again at Shuri, and Clint adjusts his volume. “It was only thirty minutes for me.”

Steve shrugs again. “Not your fault.” He shifts his weight. “Did . . .” He looks pointedly at the white box.

Clint collapses in the nearest chair. “Yeah.”

“Shit,” Steve breathes.

“Language.”

“Oh, shut up.” Clint laughs quietly. Steve looks down at his hands, his smile fading as quickly as it appeared. “Is she . . . I mean, how is she? Did she seem okay?”

Clint nods. “Yeah. I mean, dead, but . . .” He shakes his head. “She basically yelled at me the whole time, so. Normal behavior.”

Steve chuckles. “Good.”

“Anything happen while I was gone?”

“Bruce yelled at Shuri for risking one of the infinity stones.”

Clint sits up. “Hey, _wait-_ ”

“I know. Don’t worry. I took care of it.” Clint slowly sits back, temper simmering. Steve rubs at the scruff on his chin, taking a moment to think before he adds, “And Laura called.”

Clint sits up again. “When?”

Steve blinks, caught off guard. “Oh. Um, yesterday afternoon. She didn’t seem mad.”

Clint sighs, guilt weighing at his shoulders. “No, she wouldn’t be. I’ve got to call her.”

“Yeah, you do,” Steve says, still surprised but recovering well. “Go. I’ll take care of the soul stone.”

“And Shuri?”

“Let her sleep. It’s the first rest she’s gotten in days.”

Clint nods, standing. “Thanks, Cap.”

Steve nods back. “Glad to have you back, Hawkeye.”

Clint presses his lips together. “Not all back. Not yet, maybe not ever. But-” He glances at the blanketed lump that is the princess of Wakanda. “-healing.”

Steve only smiles. “Go.”

Clint pulls his phone out of his pocket and leaves the room dialing Laura’s number. It’s only when he’s assured her three times over that he’s okay, that it’s over, that he’ll see her soon, that he realizes he never even told Nat that they’d won.

 

That’s the regret that ends up staying with him throughout the years. The nightmares only last a few weeks, and the piercing pain eases to a dull ache after a few months. Eventually he’s able to tell stories about her without tears or rage or both, though he still has to excuse himself whenever he remembers that Nathaniel will barely recall that Auntie Nat - his namesake - even existed. 

The regular steps to healing, the ones that everyone take, help. The quiet service he holds for her ends up being quite a large service, because he forgot the sheer number of Avengers there are now and every single one of them wants to pay their respects. He manages to convince (read: blackmail) Fury into pulling some strings and getting a small memorial constructed in Washington DC, right near where she helped take down SHIELD. She would have liked it, he thinks. Tony has an enormous statue in the center of New York City, a larger-than-life Iron Man with his arms spread as if saying _here I am, world, take your best shot._ Nat’s is nothing so grandiose, just a simple bronze plaque in the shape of an hourglass set into the ground. Etched into it are the words _her ledger is clean. 1984-2019._ Clint visits it every year on her birthday.

He switches the kids’ daily language lessons from sign language to Russian. They complain at first, particularly Coop and Nate, even though they’re basically fluent in sign language at this point. Lila takes to Russian with a gravity he didn’t expect, but he thinks she wants to learn it for the same reason he wants to teach it. He and Laura find her crying in her room sometimes. He hates that all he can do is hold her.

He puts Cooper in mixed martial arts classes. Laura’s a bit wary of that, but she has to admit that it’s a good outlet for his energy. Lila desperately wants to join too, but what with archery competitions, Russian classes (she surpassed his homeschooling abilities at an alarming speed), and a budding interest in the _cello_ of all things, she doesn’t have time. She has to settle for private combat lessons.

“This is a privilege! You know I’m basically a superhero, right?” he tells her.

Lila rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but- you’re my _dad,”_ and that’s that on that.

Laura insists that Nate is way too sweet a kid to put in MMA classes, and she’s probably right, even though it makes Clint a little sad. In the very back of his head, he has this completely ridiculous wish that Nate were a little more like his aunt. He knows it’s not fair; he knows it’s not reasonable. It still sticks in his head.

Nate’s still a wild three-year-old, though. Laura and Clint argue back and forth on whether to put him in soccer or gymnastics - soccer’s too competitive, gymnastics is too expensive, and so on. They’re still arguing when Christmastime rolls around and Laura drags the family to a professional production of the _Nutcracker._ Lila has a mild interest. Cooper literally falls asleep. And Nate?

Nate demands to be put immediately in ballet classes.

Clint supposes some things are inevitable.

 

There are still moments. Clint will catch a glimpse of red hair in a crowd, or he’ll spot a spider in the barn, and it’ll hit him all over again that his best friend is gone. He’ll never speak to her or laugh at her or hug her again. Period. Full stop.

It’ll hit him and he’ll shatter and have to find someplace private to shelter while he picks up the pieces.

Those moments suck every time.

But there are also moments when the kids demand another story about Auntie Nat, and he’ll tell them about the time she dropped out of a jet on a motorcycle, or about the time she swore that bananas were spicy only to realize that she was allergic to them. And they’ll laugh, and Laura will smile fondly; and he’ll have that sensation in his chest, that glowing, stinging warmth that reminds him that she died - on her own terms - for _this._ For him and his family. He’ll keep working to make sure that he deserves it, but for now?

. . . for now, it’s pretty okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew. There it is. The end of my very first fic. This was a labor of love in two parts: one, I've loved Natasha and Clint since I first saw them together in Avengers (2012), and it pained me deeply to not see their relationship further developed; but two, and more importantly, I suffered a loss of my own only a few days before I saw Endgame. Writing my way through Clint's grief helped me work my way through mine. And, after all, isn't that what stories are all about? Teaching us how to struggle through our infinitely complex and difficult lives by showing us how characters struggle through theirs?
> 
> For me they are. For you, maybe, maybe not. There's no right way to experience stories, after all.
> 
> I'll definitely be posting more work in the future. If you want to see it, feel free to subscribe. If not, no worries - I'll see you around! Either way, thank you so much for stopping by. I hope this story helped you with your pain; it certainly helped me with mine.
> 
> Lots of love!  
> Exo


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